He said Malaysia wants to collaborate with any research institution which could come up with the vaccines as there was a dire need for them.

Mr Muhyiddin, who was given a briefing on seven types of research related to biotechnology, agriculture and veterinary services during a visit to the University of Maryland here Monday, said Malaysia was keen to establish collaboration with institutions which had undertaken research on the Newcastle Disease and Avian Influenza poultry vaccines.

“There is a dire need (to produce the vaccines). We have yet to overcome this problem. Perhaps, with this collaboration (with the University of Maryland), we can benefit. They have started projects in which we share an interest,” he told Malaysian journalists after the visit.

The University of Maryland, which Mr Muhyiddin visited as part of his four-day visit to Washington beginning Sunday, is recognised as a leading public research university in the United States.

Eighteen Malaysian students are pursuing their Masters degrees at the university, Bernama.com reports.

Mr Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, proposed a framework of collaboration or memorandum between Malaysia and the university to enable relevant agencies in Malaysia to establish collaboration in research, such as the production of animal vaccines.

He said the University of Maryland had forged collaboration with many countries, which had benefited from its research projects, such as the production of animal vaccines in Indonesia, Mexico and African countries.

“It is necessary to have a memorandum for us to identify areas of collaboration so that it can yield much benefit for Malaysia,” he said.

He said he was informed that the University of Maryland had begun collaboration with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) on vaccines, and he wanted it to progress to a more concrete stage.

MALAYSIA – Melaka raked in 1.55 billion ringgit (MYR) last year from the poultry industry with the export of chicken and chicken-based products, accounting for 86 per cent of earnings.

Bernama reports that Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam said last year’s output was 78 per cent higher than the MYR874.05 million earned by the industry in 2005.

Melaka is the largest producer of chicken eggs in Malaysia with a daily output of 7.5 million and exported chicken meat and eggs to Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Timor Leste, he said at the national-level free-zone awareness campaign for Newcastle disease in Merlimau recently.

His speech text was delivered, on his behalf, by Chairman of the Melaka Industry, Commerce and Entrepreneurial and Cooperative Development Committee, Datuk Md Yunos Husin.

Mohd Ali said Melaka also exported day-old chicks to Indonesia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Brunei and the Philippines as such the awareness programme was vital to ensure chicken-based products in Melaka are disease-free and of high-quality.

He also said chicken raised in the backyard and villages, which were normally not confined in cages, must also be vaccinated as they risk contracting the bird flu and Newcastle disease.

MALAYSIA – Poultry farmers in Perak have been urged to licence their farms under the Poultry Farming Enactment 2005.

State Veterinary Services Department director, Dr Quaza Nizamuddin Hassan Nizam, said since the implementation of the enactment in January this year, only 473 of the 805 farms in the state had applied to be licensed.

Farmers who rear chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, quail, pigeons and ostriches are covered under the enactment, reports The Star of Malaysia.

Explaining the procedure, Dr Quaza Nizamuddin said farmers merely needed to fill up a one-page form which was available at all the department’s district offices and within two weeks, their personnel would be deployed to inspect the farm.

“If the farmers do not know how to fill up the form, we can even help them,” he added, allaying fears that the process was a tedious one.

Speaking at a press conference in Ipoh last week, Dr Quaza Nizamuddin said the licence would be issued to the farmers once the department found everything in the farm was in order.

“In the event the farms need to undergo upgrading to ensure they meet with specifications stipulated under the enactment, the operators will be given time to do so,” he added.

He stressed that it was not the department’s intention to make farmers’ lives difficult.

“By being registered, it will allow us to ensure poultry farming in the state is done in a structured manner which is both public and environmentally friendly,” he said.

“Chicken farming contributes MYR844 million while duck farming contributes MYR196 million to the state,” he said, adding that five million ducks from Perak are exported to Singapore annually.

To a question, he said farmers’ apathy was the main reason why they refused to register for the licence.

The Star report adds that, while the department had yet to take action against unlicensed farms since the implementation of the enactment, he hoped farmers would not wait until enforcement officers raided their farms.

He reminded farmers that under the enactment, the department was empowered to close down farms which had failed to register.

In the Bursa filing, KFCH said the four companies are among seven intrapreneur farms in Sedenak Kulai, Johor, owned by Johor Franchise Development Sdn Bhd (Johor Franchise) and Johor Ventures Sdn Bhd (Johor Ventures), according to Business Times of Malaysia.

The remaining three farms are owned by Ayamas.

The company will acquire from Johor Franchise, a 90 per cent stake in Southern Poultry Sdn Bhd for MYR378,000, a 84.75 per cent stake in Synergy Poultry Sdn Bhd for MYR296,625, and a 90 per cent stake in Ventures Poultry Sdn Bhd for MYR378,000.

It will meanwhile, acquire the entire stake of Agrotech Farm Sdn Bhd from Johor Ventures for MYR1.

In view of the above structure, Ayamas has proposed to centralise and introduce a corporate structure to manage all farms under the company to enable it to gain from the advantages of a centralised structure.

The company said with a single corporate structure, it provides a platform for more effective resource planning, enabling the processing plant to meet the demand for its restaurant division and open market.

It said this can be done as all broilers from the farms are supplied to the Ayamas processing plant for slaughtering and further processes.

According to Business Times, Johor Ventures and Johor Franchise are wholly-owned subsidiaries of JCorp.

JCorp is the holding corporation of QSR Brands Bhd (QSR) via its direct shareholding and indirect shareholding in Kulim (Malaysia) Bhd (Kulim). Kulim in turn, is a holding company of QSR, a major shareholder of KFCH.

Leong Hup Holdings Bhd (LHH) is always on the look-out to acquire business operations that are synergistic and will contribute positively to its long term earnings, reports Starbiz of Malaysia.

Executive director, Tan Sri Francis Lau Tuang Nguang, said the company would continue to focus on further strengthening and developing its broiler segment in the country.

He said this could be done by acquiring existing small and medium broilers or establishing joint-ventures with them.

Francis Lau is confident of good prospects for Malaysia’s poultry producers. After the company AGM and EGM yesterday, he told StarBiz: “Malaysia still offers good prospects for companies rearing chickens for their meat as the country’s chicken consumption is the highest in the region at 38kg per capita.”

Shareholders at the EGM approved the proposed acquisition of the entire issued and paid-up capital of 5.09 million shares in Ladang Ternakan Maju Sdn Bhd (LTM) for 10.84 million ringgit (MYR), to be satisified by 10.333 million new LHH shares at MYR1.05 each.

With LTM becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of LHH, LHH’s annual production of day-old chicks would increase to 134 million from 124 million now, said Mr Lau.

He said LHH’s production of broiler chickens would also rise to about 49 million yearly from 40 million, and its market share in broiler farming in Malaysia would expand to 10 per cent from eight per cent.

According to StarBiz, he said figures by the Federation of Livestock Farmers’ Associations of Malaysia in 2008 showed that over 3,000 broiler farms in the peninsula produced about 491 million birds.

Presently, LHH has more than 80 broilers farms in the peninsula, mostly located in Johor, Perak, Selangor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan while LTM’s farms are mainly in Perak and Selangor.

Mr Lau explained: “Having poultry farms in most major locations in the peninsula can reduce transportation costs when delivering the birds to our clients and curtail the chances of infectious disease outbreaks in the farms.”

He added that chicken meat remains the cheapest source of protein in Malaysia and with celebrations by the four major ethnic groups throughout the year, chicken meat will remain popular.

Mr Lau said that the strength of the ringgit against the US dollar in recent months is a blessing as the company imported 95 per cent of its raw materials from Argentina, China, South Africa and the United States, with the purchases denominated in the US dollar.

However, despite cheaper raw materials, the company was optimistically cautious due to drought in Russia and major floods in Pakistan which might see increased demand for wheat from these countries.

Mr Lau said if demand for wheat from these countries rocketed in the coming months, major wheat producers might have problems coping with demand and this would also affect other importing countries such as Malaysia.

StarBiz reports that for the financial year ended 31 March, LHH recorded a net profit of MYR57.13 million and revenue of MYR1.142 billion against MYR36.26 million and MYR1.141 billion, respectively, in FY2009. For the first quarter to 30 June, it posted a lower net profit of MYR10.05 million, despite an improved revenue of MYR294.8 million compared with MYR13.22 million in net profit and MYR280.61 million in revenue a year earlier.